Gender Sells

Newsweek is getting a lot of attention today for the cover shot of Michele Bachmann that accompanies their profile piece, saying it makes her look crazy. While Newsweek may be creating controversy in order to hawk magazines, the characterization of Bachmann as crazy is not without evidence.



And as Matt Taibbi pointed out in his Rolling Stone Bachmann piece:

"In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance."

While the blogosphere is in a tail-spin about the Bachmann cover, the real story seems to be that Tina Brown, since taking over as Editor-in-Chief at Newsweek, has decided that females buy magazines, and thus like to see famous females on the cover, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Mid-term Election Gay Marriage Bait

In a pretty clear attempt to get individual congressmen on the record on gay marriage, Rep. Lamar Smith has sponsored a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives disapproving of Judge Walker's ruling on the Prop 8 case. Co-sponsors include Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Peter Hoekstra, and Missouri's own Todd Akin. In other words, the usual suspects. The disapproving language of the bill is not available online yet. To keep track of this legislation, you can follow it here.

Bachmann Beats Palin

From David Frum:

Michele Bachmann raised $1.7 million in the last quarter, more than the erstwhile Republican vice-presidential candidate, even though she had to balance fundraising with her congressional duties and her campaign for reelection. More importantly, Bachmann’s contributors were limited by FEC regulations to a maximum of $2,400, while Palin’s contributors were each allowed to donate up to $5,000 to her PAC.

Bachmann is raising spectacular amounts of money. So the question should be: why isn’t Palin, a national figure with more media coverage than Bachmann, at least keeping pace?

A good excuse to post a classic Bachmann video.